Somebody
told me that there was a Sarplaninac at the Fair in Liege, near the big
carousel. We went there for a walk and indeed we found a big, nice, very
dark and calm Sarplaninac. He was half asleep under that very big and noisy
installation. In 1996, I was wondering which dog I would take to mate with
my Seka. And I remembered this dog. When it was this Fair again I went back,
I found this dog and I talked to his owner, who was Belgian. I managed to
persuade him to make an X-ray of the dogs’ hips, at my charges.
This dog came as a puppy and was sold together with some others by Markovic
from Belgrade. All his puppies originated from different kennels, mainly
from the province of Vojvodine. This dog was a product from the kennel from
the veterinarian Mr. Filipovic-Zuca, about whom I spoke already in my trip
Nr 7. The dog was the son of Tarzan from Perakovic and from Gea. I do not
know how this Markovic managed to enter into the great dog shows, such as
the one in Brussels, and sell his puppies. They ended up with people I know.
Later it was confirmed that all of them had dysplasia of the hips, with
some of them you could see difficulties when walking, and others were nicely
walking and were winning CACIB at the exhibitions.
It was in October that we went to the Veterinarian University to make the
X-ray of Numa. Those few pictures were made at this occasion and he was
8 years old.

Unfortunately, it was confirmed that he also had displacement of the hips
such as all the other Sarplaninac this dealer and not “breeder”
had sold. I said goodbye to the owner of this dog and comforted him that
his dog may be never would suffer from his hips, as he already came to
the age of 8 years without suffering. I never went back to the Fair to
see him again.